Drugging her and hiding her in my basement until she comes to. Gently explaining to her when she wakes up that I saw something beautiful in her. “I know this must be confusing, but that’s okay. You don’t have to understand yet.”
She keeps wondering out loud where her clothes are, asking for them back. I tell her I have them right here- a neatly folded pile of new and nicely made clothes with tags. I had burned her ill fitting jeans and the nice but ugly polo shirt she had worn on our date.
“Those aren’t mine.” She says tearfully as I help her dress. Her hair is still fairly short. That will be fixed with a few months here in my basement. She weakly struggles as I strip her, she’s pleading at me not to look at her. I don’t, but I already take gentle note of how fragile and thin and frail she is. I click my tongue in disapproval.
“Your chest is horribly flat.” I say, with obvious disappointment, pulling a blouse over her shoulders. A modest plaid skirt follows. “Your skin looks like it’d bruise if I breathed on it. That’ll need to be fixed.”
She asks me what the hell I’m talking about. And she realizes suddenly what I’m doing. She’s heard about those horrible transsexual groomers on the morning radio, the nightly news. The stupid girl finally puts two and two together. The strange and gangly tomboy from her tinder date didn’t quite look the part of someone who could drug and kidnap her.
I had seemed too weak then, over coffee. I’d made sure of it, my hoodie pulled up over my bright blue hair. Little pins of my favorite cartoons on my bag. I didn’t look like the type who could drag a six foot woman into the bed of my truck.
She’s crying profusely, and trying to hide it. I grab her by the hair and slap her across the face, as hard as I can. She cries harder and tries to pull away so I won’t see. I won’t let her. I make her look up at me with that pretty face full of tears.
“Let it all out darling.” I tell her, “You don’t get to hide that face. Cry for me.”
Her pretty eyelashes shine with little tears. She’ll grow to fit the nice clothes I bought her. I have chili simmering on the stove upstairs. I have my strap sitting cleaned and prepped on my bed to bring down soon, so she can practice servicing with her mouth. She’ll eat and then we’ll get to work.
“What was my name?” I ask her softly, “On our date?”
She replies tearfully with a girl’s name that isn’t mine.
“Lovely.” I say. “That’s your name now. You can call me Dad.”
